But the Willow pant is not that.
I know, every retailer says their products are different: “Trust us, give us your money and our product will change your life.” That’s partly why we have this blog and why we provide free swatches – so that you don’t have to trust us. You can learn about the textile and apparel industry for yourself, and make your own informed decisions.
So maybe you’ve been following along, and maybe you agree the Willow pant is great. But you don’t believe $270 is a fair price to pay. We can’t blame you, because we haven’t told you the price breakdown until now. Here it goes:
This gets us to a total cost of $20492.88 to develop, produce, and sell 100 Willow pants (our total business expenses), or $204.93 per unit. This means that Waxwing Labs makes a profit of $65.07 for each pant we sell, resulting in a net profit margin of 24.1%. As a side note, net profit margin is calculated by finding the difference between net sales and total business expenses, divided by net sales: ($27,000 in sales - $20,492.88 total expenses)/($27,000 in sales) x 100 = 24.1%.
What does this all mean? At first glance, a net profit margin of 24.1% is a lot – the average is 4.5% for an online retailer. But this is assuming that we’ve sold out of the Willow pant and haven’t restocked, added new sales, or otherwise grown our business. Assuming we’ve sold all 100 units of the Willow pant, we’ve now made $27,000, of which our net profit would be $6507. We’ve made our money back, plus a little more. At this point, we could do a few things –
We’re going with option #3. We want to grow this company and – going back to our mission – celebrate fabrics. We plan to reinvest our profit into Waxwing Labs – that means our 24.1% net profit margin is going to turn into 0% (or maybe 1 or 2%, for a rainy day fund :) ). We’re here for the love of fashion and fabrics, not to get rich.
So to answer the question, “why is your pant so expensive,” well, it’s because it’s because quality, ethical, small run products are expensive to make – but well worth the experience.
]]>There are a myriad of fabric constructions, but for now we’ll just cover the basics. First things first, a fabric is simply defined as a material constructed with fibers, and there are 3 main umbrella categories: wovens, knits, and nonwovens. Of these, we’ll start with the smallest category - nonwovens.
Nonwovens are pretty much anything that’s not knit or woven, like fusible interfacing or felt. In a knit or a woven fabric, fibers are spun into yarns and then constructed into a fabric, but not so with non-wovens. In this case, the fibers are held together in a random matrix to form a fabric. Some common ways this is done are by mixing the fibers with glue, fusing the fibers to a scrim, or needlepunching the fibers so they interlock together, like in the felted heart below.
This results in a useful material for a variety of industries (medical supplies, filters, etc.), but for the fashion industry, nonwovens are typically only used to provide internal structure to a garment. To get a drape-y, fabric-like nonwoven, the fibers would have to be loosely connected, which would mean they would also easily pull apart when wearing the garment. To prevent this, the fibers could be more densely intertwined or more glue could be used to hold them together, but this would result in a stiffer material. It would still have a bit of “give,” in the way that you could say a piece of paper has “give” – you can bend, twist, roll, or fold it, but it’s not going to drape. But because of these properties, nonwovens are perfect for providing a somewhat flexible structure to garments.
Now that we know what a nonwoven is, let’s talk about woven fabrics. Woven fabrics are made by yarns that perpendicularly cross over and under each other. The yarns that run up and down (vertically) are called the warp (or ends), and the yarns that run side to side (horizontally), are called the weft (or picks). To understand the construction of fabrics, you need to first have a rough idea of the machinery that makes them.
image via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warp_and_weft_2.jpg
All woven fabrics start with the warp yarns. First, yarns are wrapped onto a giant beam, usually with the help of a creeling machine. This now becomes the warp beam, which is then attached to the weaving loom. Next, each warp yarn is threaded through a heddle, which is attached to a harness (the heddles keep the yarns organized, and the harness moves the yarns up and down). After this, the yarns pass through the reeds, which help keep the yarns organized. Once threaded, the warp yarns are tied off under tension on the cloth beam, which uptakes the resulting woven fabric (because warp yarns are under so much tension, they tend to be stronger than the weft yarns). This process is called warping a loom and it’s done by hand – it can take a full day or two to complete. Because of this, industrial weavers try to keep each warp on the loom for as long as possible to avoid the downtime (and production loss) of re-warping.
creeling packages of yarn onto a warp beam. credit: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/3e0f9458-9dc5-46e6-bd2c-27a24442e557
two warp beams on a towel loom. credit: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/69492da0-6ec0-40dd-bac7-c9e92fc5ae71
With the warp set up, the weft yarns are then attached to a shuttle (which is a tool that helps slide the weft yarns between the warp yarns). In the most basic weave – appropriately called the plain weave – a weft yarn will go under one warp yarn, then over the next, then under the third, over and over again. But unlike your youthful days of making potholders, the shuttle doesn’t have to pick its way under and over each warp yarn. This is where the loom harnesses come in – they can raise certain threads of the warp, so the shuttle can slide right through to the other side. For a quick half-second or less the shuttle then pauses, while the harnesses are lowered and then raised again with a different set of warp yarns. The shuttle again slides through the resulting shed (the space between the raised and lowered warp yarns), and so on until the fabric is complete.
And now we can get fancy with our woven fabrics. We can have the weft yarns go over three warp yarns, and then under one, and then over three again, and we get a twill weave (a diagonal pattern; this is the construction you see in denim). We could have the weft yarns go over fifteen warp yarns all at once, and then under just one warp yarn, to get a satin weave. We could use two yarns together as one in the weft and get a basket weave. We can even have two warp beams on a loom and get a double-woven fabric – literally, two pieces of fabric woven together and connected at once. You can make so many different fabrics by just weaving yarns over and over each other in different patterns – velveteen, corduroy, sateen, poplin, chambray, gabardine, gauze, lawn, and georgette are just some examples.
printed poplin fabric. credit: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/389c411e-ac2e-4fbe-9760-c7ab8089f5a3
gauze fabric. credit: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/a12f2863-ed81-477d-ae37-de99fc8fa8e5
We can get even fancier by just playing with the tension and size of the yarns we use. For example, poplins and gauzes are both made in the basic plain weave structure, but they are vastly different fabrics. By tightly weaving very fine weft yarns with slightly coarser warp yarns, we get the light and crisp fabric we know as poplin (often used in shirting). In contrast, gauzes are so loosely woven together that you can see the open squares formed by the yarns, like a grid (this is super nice for light and airy beach cover-ups). We can quantify this difference to some extent by counting the number of warp and weft yarns in a square inch of fabric. Assuming that all yarns are the same size in two fabrics up for comparison, the fabric with fewer warps and wefts per inch will be more loosely woven than a fabric with a greater number. Of course, this all changes with yarn size – a thicker yarn naturally takes up more space than a thinner yarn (we’ll get in to this more next week).
No matter the tension, yarn, or fiber used, though, woven fabrics always have one thing in common – two sets of yarns (a warp and a weft) that go over and under each other at right angles (perpendicularly). This is the most important thing to remember about woven fabrics, and it’s in stark contrast to knits.
Knits are made by yarns that loop together. Unlike wovens, a knit fabric can be made with just one yarn (think of hand knitting), but most industrial machines use several different spools of yarn. Interestingly, hand weaving and industrial weaving follow pretty similar mechanic, while hand and industrial knitting aren’t quite the same as each other. To me, it’s easier to visualize the process of knitting a fabric by imagining hand knitting – if we don’t have one, we’ve all at least seen a picture of a grandmother and her knitting needles!
credit: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/fca39a7c-b9fd-4bd7-8b2c-efe523a41c68
To hand knit, you start by casting on the yarn (looping the yarn around the left hand needle). This is the first row (or course in knit-speak). The yarn “feed” and second needle are held in the right hand. To knit, the right needle is poked through the first loop on the left hand needle, and more yarn is wrapped around that right needle to form a new loop. The right needle then comes back out of the loop on the left hand needle, but in doing so, slides that loop off the left needle. Now the right needle has one loop on it (and the left needle has one less loop), but that one new loop is still connected to the old loop from the left hand needle – so vertically, you have two loops. This is your first column (which is called a wale), and also the start of your second row (course). As the right needle continues to make new loops and removes old loops from the left needle, the fabric grows.
credit: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Representation-of-a-plain-weft-knitted-structure-5-Where-Wales-cm-1-w-w_fig3_316555075
In industrial knitting, hundreds of needles are used, and they look more like a cross between a sewing needle and a crochet hook than they do hand knitting needles. To start, each needle on an industrial machine holds a loop. A contraption called the carriage holds the yarn, and acts a bit like the right hand needle in hand knitting. The needles are made with a little hinge, so that as the carrier approaches the needle, the needle eye can be opened to accept the new yarn from the carrier while at the same time the old loop is pushed forward and out of the eye. As the carrier passes the needle, the hinge is closed, holding on to the new loop, while the old loop is pulled off the needle.
industrial circular knitting machines. credit: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/fca39a7c-b9fd-4bd7-8b2c-efe523a41c68
upclose image of industrial knitting machine needles. credit: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/1642141e-096a-45fc-b836-2f42053d848c
Different types of knits can be made in how loops are formed. There is a “ridge” (also called a bar) at the bottom of each loop where it joins the below loop (see above picture of basic knit structure). Depending on if the ridge is made on the front or the back of the fabric, you can get different knit structures and patterns - hand knitters will know this as “knit” (ridge on the back) and “purl” (ridge on the front) stitches. For example, a jersey fabric has all the ridges on the back, while a rib knit alternates the ridges from front to back to create the rib lines.
top diagram: forming a knit stitch, with ridges on the back side of the fabric. bottom diagram: forming a purl stitch, with ridges on the front side of the fabric. credit: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/266cdb80-7d17-475c-9df3-ca45928f014b
To get more complicated knits, you can also choose to not knit certain needles on a given row (course). This is called a hold (or skip) stitch – the stitch is literally held until the next row is made, and it forms a small hole in the fabric. You can also do the opposite and knit a certain needle twice, forming a thicker loop (called a tuck stitch). Alternate between these two stitches, and you can get unique textures and patterns (see below picture). And just as wovens can have a double warp beam to make a doubleweave, you can also have a double needle bed knitting machine which creates doubleknits (for example, interlocks and pontes are varieties of doubleknits).
Lastly, if you wanted to have a knit-woven fabric mash-up, you can do that with a warp knit machine. Technically classified as a knit because the fabric is formed with loops, the warp knit machine acts more like a weaving loom. There is a warp beam, but instead of the yarns being threaded through the warp, they’re threaded through knitting needles. This is in contrast to the knitting described above (weft knitting), where the same yarn goes through many needles – in warp knitting, each needle gets its own yarn. Like in weaving, these warp yarns can be moved, but instead of up and down, the yarns are moved side to side to connect the loops together to form a knitted fabric.
raschel knit structure, a type of warp knit. credit: https://search.creativecommons.org/photos/9e1ab8d0-5e82-49dd-9152-824c76e97b3a
Similarly to wovens, some differences in knits can be quantified by the number of courses and wales per inch (rows and columns, or for wovens, warp and weft). Likewise, yarn size and type can make a vast difference in the resulting knit fabric. One important difference between knits and wovens, though, is in the naming and categorizing of knits – for example, while a loose plainweave can be a gauze and a tight plainweave can be a poplin, a loosely knit jersey is still just a jersey, as is a tightly knit jersey.
So, what does this all mean? Basically, the physical construction of a fabric impacts its texture, drape, and strength (in collaboration with the yarn). Going back to last week’s blog, cotton fibers tend to usually feel dry (grab some cosmetic cotton balls to see what I mean). But if you’re wondering how it is your cotton jeans have a dry hand but stiff drape and slightly ridged texture, while your cotton poplin shirt also has a dry hand yet a soft drape and smooth texture – it’s 50% because of the fabric construction. The other 50% has to do with the yarn, the subject of next week’s blog :)
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This week, we’re starting with the most basic spec of a garment – it’s content.
You probably have a general idea what content means, but we’re going to get into the nitty-gritty here. In this case, content refers to the percentage of a fiber (by weight) that composes a garment. For example, a basic t-shirt might be made of 60% cotton and 40% polyester. Let’s say the t-shirt was made of only one type of fabric, and a half-yard of this fabric was used to make the t-shirt. If the half-yard of fabric weighed 50 grams in total, then 30 grams of that weight are from cotton fibers (60%) and 20 grams are from polyester fibers (40%).
Note that we aren’t talking about garment weight here. That’s because garments can be made of a lot of different stuff than just fabric – there’s thread and content labels at a minimum, all the way up to garments decked out with zippers and buttons and embroidery. When we talk about a garment’s content, we are only talking about its fiber content. By U.S. law, only fibers must be listed on content tags; non-fibrous materials (wood, plastic, metal, etc.) may be omitted.
As with most things, though, there are exceptions. Fibrous garment trimmings that are less than 15% of the garment’s surface area; ornamentation that is less than 5% of the product’s fiber weight; and structural linings/interlinings/padding that are not used for warmth - can all be excluded from a garment’s content. A manufacturer can choose to include trimming or ornamentation fiber content, but they don’t have to as long as they are within these limits. It can get pretty complicated, but the main point is that generally, only a garment’s fabric is used to determine the garment’s fiber content. If you want to go even deeper, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a guide to the specifics of textile product labeling.
Now, what if a garment is made of two different fabrics? Let’s say you have a recycled cotton blouse with sheer long sleeves. Even though the sheer fabric might compose less than 15% of the garment’s total surface area, and less than 5% of the total fiber weight, the FTC advises that products using different fibers in distinct sections should use sectional disclosure. Basically, if you’re “colorblocking” with different fabrics, the content of each needs to be listed on the content tag. So, the content label for this blouse might be: “Body: 94% cotton, 6% other fibers. Sleeves: 100% silk.”
Hold on – what’s that “6% other fibers”? The FTC requires that all fibers that account for 5% or more of a products fiber weight must be listed. So how is this allowed? Sometimes, especially for fabrics made of recycled fibers, you may not always be able to tell the full fiber content. Or, if you can, maybe the fabric is 94% cotton, 1% acrylic, 1% nylon, 1% polyester, 1% rayon, 1% acetate, and 1% silk (this is an unlikely combo, but it’s not unusual for recycled fabrics to have a little bit of other fiber “contamination”). Luckily, as long as each fiber that makes up the “other fibers” is less than 5% and not functional to the garment, the FTC lets you group them all together – so you don’t have to write out a super long list of random fibers.
One last important note – if a company mentions a fiber in relation to a product, it must include that fiber on that product’s content tag. Period. Let’s say the product description of a dress goes something like “a delicate silk trim elevates the neckline of this LBD.” Since silk was mentioned, even though it’s a trim, the retailer must include silk in the product’s content label. This is to protect the consumer from false advertising claims. The FTC even goes so far to define certain specialty fibers like pima cotton and cashmere, so that there can be no confusion (note, the FTC does not differentiate wools that come from different sheep breeds, such as merino wool).
So what does all this mean? For retailers, it basically means we pay different import duty and customs rates depending on the fiber content of a product. “Is it cotton-duty?” is a common question in the industry, because there are reduced rates for textiles with contents over 50%. Why do you care? Because if you’re wondering why one t-shirt that is 45% cotton, 55% poly is more expensive than a nearly identical t-shirt that’s 60% cotton, 40% poly – it might simply be because a retailer is passing on that increased duty cost to you. Now, the cotton-duty savings might not always balance out the higher cost of cotton fiber compared to polyester fiber in general. But duties are definitely a big cost-balancing act for retailers.
More important than cost, though, is that consumers have a right to know what they’re buying. The FTC’s regulations hold retailers accountable for what they say on content labels. This protects consumers for being up-charged on a “silk” dress that’s actually polyester, and it lets consumers choose which fibers they want to wear (for reasons religious, health/allergy, sustainability, etc.). And if you’re really into textiles and know your fibers, knowing the fiber content can tell you how to dye a garment; what it’s hand feel is like; how the fiber was produced; and the “special properties” of the product – all without seeing or feeling the garment itself.
I leave you with some homework: Go into your closet and look at the content labels of your clothes. Out of curiosity, notice if your wardrobe gravitates towards certain fibers. Pay attention to how your clothes feel in your hands and relate this back to the fiber content. With practice, you’ll start to notice a general pattern – cool linens, warm wools, dry cottons, buttery Tencels, plastic-y acrylics, super-dry acetates, soft rayons. And next week, we’ll layer on the effects of fabric construction.
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Step 1: Carbon
Think back to your science class days to remember the periodic table of elements, and maybe you’ll picture carbon in it’s little square on the second row, nestled between boron and nitrogen. That’s the carbon we’re talking about, and it’s a fundamental element of all life. Combine carbon with other elements, and it takes on a different form – for example, one carbon atom plus two oxygen atoms give us the molecule carbon dioxide (CO2), which exists naturally in our atmosphere. Carbon is also a building block in fossil fuels, proteins, carbohydrates, and many more complex macromolecules that form life.
So, carbon is everywhere, but to kick off our wool lifecycle assessment, we’ll start with the carbon in our atmosphere – carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide naturally occurs in the atmosphere, and in fact it is essential in maintaining life on earth (just not too much of it – that leads to global warming). It’s released as a gas into the atmosphere in many ways, from our own respiration to volcanic eruptions to the burning of fossil fuels (hydrocarbons). And it hangs around in the atmosphere, until something happens to it.
Step 2: Plants
This is where plants come into the cycle. While we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, plants are the exact opposite. As part of their photosynthesis, they “breathe” carbon dioxide and release oxygen. According to the International Wool Textile Organisation, plants absorb 155 billion tons of atmospheric carbon through photosynthesis each year, converting all that carbon into energy (in the form of sugar) to produce biomass (more plant material). The carbon and oxygen atoms still exist, but have been recombined with hydrogen (from water) to form new sugar molecules (for the science nerds out there, this is the Calvin cycle part of photosynthesis).
This process continues on, until the plants die (returning carbon and other nutrients to the soil), or are eaten by other organisms.
Step 3: Sheep
You can probably see where this is going now – merino sheep graze pastures, eating the plants that have sequestered carbon. At this point, though, some carbon is released back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide from the sheep’s breath, and as methane from the sheep’s off-gassing (unfortunately, this methane production is the largest greenhouse gas contributor in the entire merino wool lifecycle). The rest of the carbon is used throughout the sheep’s body, including in the formation of its fleece coat. Working together, the sheep and plants engage in a mutually beneficial relationship – the sheep breathe in the oxygen released from plants while the plants breathe in the carbon dioxide released from the sheep; the sheep get energy by eating the plants, but at the same time the plants benefit from the sheep’s fertilizing waste.
And so this cycle continues, but only while the system is balanced. If the sheep are confined to one area and overgraze, the field becomes devoid of plants and flooded with sheep waste. A lack of food and unsanitary conditions in turn reduce the sheep population, until the whole system collapses. Thus, a large portion of merino wool’s sustainability starts with how the sheep themselves are managed. If managed correctly – mostly in rotating the sheep through free-range pastures - all parties flourish, even to the point where methane-eating bacteria thrive in the soil. The more methane-eating bacteria there are in the soil, the better, as they can offset the sheep’s methane producing gas and balance the carbon cycle.
One important side-note: when buying wool, make sure it’s mulesing-free. Though not directly related to sustainability, mulesling-free wool is critical to the welfare of sheep.
Step 4: Production
Sheep are shorn of their heavy fleeces once or twice a year. Because sheep don’t naturally shed their hair, shearing is necessary for them to stay healthy and active. Luckily for us, we can benefit from their abundant, excess hair by turning it into apparel. As with other fibers, wool goes through the same basic steps to become a garment – after shearing, the fleece fibers are graded and sorted by quality, then cleaned, spun into yarn, knitted or woven into fabric, and finally cut and sewn into a garment.
As with sheep management, the wool garments themselves are only as sustainable as the methods used to make them. Like all fibers, energy is needed to turn the wool into a garment – but the type of energy used (solar, wind, fossil fuels, etc.) make a big difference in the wool’s overall carbon impact. Choosing processes that use minimal energy also help – for example, forming a supply chain that is geographically close together minimizes the fossil fuels needed to transport the goods from farm to mill to factory to retailer.
Still, though, there are some inherent benefits to wool garment production – according to Woolmark, wool uses 18% less energy than polyester and about 70% less water than cotton to produce 100 sweaters.
Step 5: Death
Like all things, eventually a wool garment will come to the end of its life – hopefully because it was so loved and worn that it disintegrated past repair J And this is where wool really shines in its sustainability – there’s a healthy resale market for wool garments; it can be recycled into new garments; and its biodegradable, returning nutrients and carbon to the soil without contributing to microfiber pollution.
Remembering back to the first two posts in this series, merino wool is both strong and flexible, and because it has anti-odor properties, it can be washed less. This means that wool garments generally last longer than others (as long as they are properly cared for). If your wool sweater no longer suits your style, chances are it’s still in good condition for the resale market. In fact, according to Woolmark, 5% of donated clothes are made of wool, even though only wool only accounts for 1.2% of virgin fibers. Wool makes up a disproportionate share of donated clothes, which is a good thing – the more we can reuse and item, the less its carbon footprint.
Most importantly, because wool is completely natural, it can easily be biodegraded. This is important, because the microorganisms that break down materials often don’t recognize those that are manmade, so they don’t eat them. Think of it this way – microogranisms and bacteria have been around for billions of years, and have evolved to eat certain things. Manmade materials, particularly plastic, are fairly new – the organisms don’t know what to do with them, so they eat the natural materials that they’ve always eaten. And when a material can be completely biodegraded, there’s no micro-fibers still hanging around, building up in the environment. In as little as 3-4 months, wool is completely gone, broken down into its most elemental parts and returned as nutrients to the soil or ocean.
Step 6: Rebirth
At last, we’ve come full circle. When wool biodegrades, it acts as a fertilizer for plants by releasing nitrogen, sulfur, and magnesium into the soil – meaning that wool can actually help the environment. As plants continue to grow, enriched by the biodegraded wool’s nutrients, they continue to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This helps prevent a buildup of carbon dioxide and thereby slows the rate of global warming. As sheep eat the plants, some of those same carbon atoms from the plant are sequestered and used in the sheep’s body, including in their fleeces. The fleeces are turned into garments, still holding onto the same carbon atoms. And when wool garments decompose in the soil, that carbon is still there, safely trapped in the earth instead of released back into the atmosphere. In this way, wool has the ability to help remove carbon from the atmosphere, making it one of the greatest fibers of all time.
Further reading:
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/sweet-secret/?utm_source=BibblioRCM_Row
https://www.woolmark.com/industry/use-wool/wool-processing/
https://www.woolmark.com/industry/sustainability/wool-farming-and-sustainable-fashion/
https://www.woolmark.com/environment/environmental-edit/
https://www.woolmark.com/industry/research/measuring-wools-environmental-footprint/
https://www.woolmark.com/environment/wool-and-microplastics/
https://iwto.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/26-March-AgR-Research-Case-Study.pdf
https://ecocult.com/5-surprising-reasons-love-wearing-wool/
https://iwto.org/sustainability/tbc-environmental-impacts-of-wool-textiles/
https://iwto.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/IWTO_Wool-is-Biodegradable.pdf
https://iwto.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/IWTO_Wool-Carbon-Cycle.pdf
https://www.livescience.com/33085-petroleum-derived-plastic-non-biodegradable.html]]>
Remember that a merino wool fiber has many layers. In a way, merino is a bit like a shallot – peel off the crispy brown outer layer, and you’ll discover two or three mini purple shallots stuck together whereas before, it looked like you had just one large shallot. Separate these mini shallots, and you’ll see each one has its own layers like an onion.
Merino wool fibers work a similar way. From the outside, a merino fiber looks like just one solid scaly fiber (or one brown shallot). Peel off its outer layer (the cuticular scales and cuticle layers), and inside there’s a yin-yang like structure, with half made of para-corticle cells and the other half made of ortho-cortical cells. Look closely, and you’ll see that each of these cells is like a tiny shallot. Take one of these shallots (aka cells) and peel off its first layer – the cell membrane complex – to reveal all the macrofibrils inside. Each macrofibril is again like a microscopic shallot, with more layers. Take this microscopic shallot, peel off its outer layer – the matrix – to reveal the microfibrils (more micro-micro shallots). One more time, peel off the outer layer (protofibril) of the microfibril (micro-micro shallot) to finally get to the twisted molecular chains and helical coils, the smallest part of the merino wool fiber.
So how does this complicated structure make merino wool both elastic and strong? For merino’s elasticity, we can look towards its inner most helical coils. These coils act just like a spring or rubber band – they can easily stretch without breaking and snap back into place without damage. These coils are made of proteins like keratin, which (keratin in particular) provide further strength and resilience with their strong but flexible scaffold-like structures.
Though these twisted molecular chains and coils are strong on their own, they become even stronger when twisted all together and encased by the protofibril, thus becoming microfibrils. Icebreaker says it well –
“The microfibrils in the matrix are rather like the steel rods embedded in reinforced concrete to give strength and flexibility.”
When you look at a merino fiber, therefore, imagine it as a skyscraper made of elongated shallots-within-shallots. Just as real skyscrapers can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes, merino too gains its strength and flexibility from its innermost structures. This allows merino to bend up to 20,000 times with out breaking, and can stretch more than 30% of its length and still return to its original shape.
If a material can be this strong and flexible, how is it that it can also be super-soft? After all, wool does have a reputation for being scratchy. And it is true – broad wool (fibers from sheep that are raised for both their meat and wool) is scratchy. But, there are different classifications of wool, which are defined by the diameter of the fiber in microns (one millionth of a meter). Broad wool is one type (greater than 25 microns), followed by medium (20.6-24.5 microns) and then fine wools (less than 20.5 microns). Merino wool falls with the fine to medium wool classification, with most merinos being fine. In comparison, the average human hair is thick and chunky with a diameter of 50-100 microns.
So what does this mean for softness? Softness is generally measured by the diameter of the fiber – the finer the fiber, the softer. Moreover, back in 2017, a group of researchers found that wool fibers over 30 microns are perceived as itchy, though not a source of allergens themselves. The itchiness of the thicker wool fibers is because these coarser fibers are just big enough to literally poke your skin – it’s like a million microscopic pricks all over from the fibers sticking out of the fabric. Merino is different. It’s fibers are fine enough that they don’t trigger an itchy response from your skin. And furthermore, because they are so flexible, merino fibers actually curl up against themselves when pressed against your skin – meaning no sharp pin pricks.
Thus, merino wool is super soft, strong but flexible, temperature regulating, and fire and static resistant. Perhaps its most amazing ability is that it can do all of the above, completely naturally and sustainably. We’ll discuss just that in Part 3 – Sustainability!
Sources
https://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/image/7663/
https://www.hdwool.com/blog/the-structure-of-wool
https://www.woolmark.com/fibre/
https://csiropedia.csiro.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/6229343.pdf
https://www.woolmark.com/fibre/soft-merino-wool/
https://www.woolmark.com/industry/research/wool-eczema/#allergen
https://www.medicaljournals.se/acta/content/html/10.2340/00015555-2655
https://iwto.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/IWTO_Wool-Performance.pdf
https://runrepeat.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-merino-wool
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CSIRO_ScienceImage_8115_Human_hair_and_Merino_wool_fibre.jpg
https://www.icebreaker.com/en-us/our-story/the-science-of-merino.html
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.689.453&rep=rep1&type=pdf
]]>To recap, merino has so many benefits that it may seem too-good-to-be-true:
How many fabrics do you know that can do all that? It seemed impossible to me too, until I understood how the merino fiber works.
Half of merino’s abilities come from its relationship with water (literally, points 1-10 above are because of this). Merino has this specific relationship because of its chemical and physical structures.
Merino wool is a protein fiber, which in the simplest of terms means that it comes from an animal (in this case, from the fleece of merino sheep). For reference, there are three types of fibers: protein, synthetic (manmade, like polyester), and cellulosic (from plants, like cotton). Merino wool, like all wool, stands out from synthetic and cellulosic fibers because its chemical structure is not consistent throughout the fiber. Wool is made up of a combination of 18 different amino acids (only 22 occur naturally), which combine in various ways to make polypeptide chains. These chains are then connected together by chemical and physical bonds. The result is that there are over 170 different proteins located in various areas of a wool fiber. That is to say – there’s a lot going on chemically with wool that allows it to have all the benefits listed above, whereas other fibers just aren’t as complicated (and have fewer benefits).
Now, back to the merino wool – water relationship. Because of the variety in its chemical structure, merino fibers have areas that are both hydrophobic (water-hating) and hydrophilic (water-loving). Furthermore, wool fibers have several “layers”, and one central layer, called the matrix, is able to hold water.
So, how does this keep you both warm and cool? Well, imagine that you are chasing your dog around the house to get your shoe back before you go to work in your merino sweater. You might generate a bit of sweat, which sits on top of your skin – but not for too long. Heat from your body turns the sweat into water vapor. The water-loving parts of your merino wool sweater suck up this vapor as if they were a straw, and store the moisture in the porous structures in the mid-layers of the fiber (called the matrix). The matrix allows wool to hold up to 30% of its weight in water before feeling wet, outperforming all other fibers in this case. But the matrix can only hold so much moisture before it “overflows” – in which case the water-hating areas work to move the moisture to the outside of the fiber (this is called wicking). The moisture is spread out over a greater surface area, where it can evaporate. This allows the cycle to continue – absorb, store, evaporate, absorb – until no moisture is left.
This evaporative action is further aided by the outer structure of the wool fiber. Wool has shingle-like, scaly outer structure. The small space between the overlap of the scales allow water vapor in and out of the fiber, aiding the evaporative process explained earlier. These scales are also covered with a waxy substance that helps repel moisture – and it’s chemically bonded to the fiber, so it won’t wash out. So, this means wool can easily release moisture, but because of its waxy covering, its harder to completely saturate wool.
Going back to our chasing-the-dog example, this means that you won’t need to change your merino sweater before going to work. Your sweater won’t be soggy with sweat, and you won’t be clammy and cold now that you’ve gotten your shoe back. You might even find that you are pleasantly warmer in your sweater.
That’s because wool doesn’t just keep you warm by keeping you “not cold”. When the moisture reaches the internal cells of the fiber, a chemical reaction occurs that produces heat. Wool fibers are crimped (due to the intertwining of the orthocortex and paracortex, which make up the core of the fiber), which create tiny little air pockets. This means that when the chemical reaction with moisture happens and heat is generated, wool can hold on to that heat.
This is also what leads to a better night’s sleep – merino helps regulate your body temperature so that you don’t overheat or over chill. This means that you don’t wake up in the middle of the night sweating or freezing, and can sleep sounder.
But what about those other benefits, like anti- bacterial/static/fire/odor/stain? Wool contains just enough moisture in its matrix that it is naturally fire-resistant and prevents the build up of static electricity. Should wool catch fire, it won’t melt, it emits less smoke compared to other fibers, and it can extinguish itself (this makes wool great for wearing around campfires). As for the anti-bacterial bit – wool may hold water in its matrix, but it also releases water when oversaturated and repels water on its surface (thanks to its waxy outer scales). This enables wool to create its own kind of microclimate where bacteria can’t thrive, as bacteria need moist, saturated environments. If odor-causing bacteria can’t thrive, then there’s also no odor - even after you’ve worn the same shirt for a week. This microclimate also means wool is better for your skin, especially if you are prone to dry skin – in fact, research has shown that eczema was significantly reduced after wearing merino wool. And stains? If they’re water-based, wool will repel it. Should some moisture seep into the fabric, wool’s hydrophobic (water-hating) areas will wick it back towards the surface, reducing the chance of a permanent stain.
Who would have thought there was so much going on between wool and water? But wool’s not done yet; it still has more to offer in Part 2.
Sources:
https://www.woolmark.com/industry/research/wool-eczema/
https://iwto.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/IWTO_Wool-Fire.pdf
https://www.woolmark.com/fibre/
https://runrepeat.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-merino-wool
https://iwto.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/IWTO_Wool-Performance.pdf
https://csiropedia.csiro.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/6229343.pdf
https://www.scienceimage.csiro.au/image/7663/
https://www.geoffanderson.com/materials-in-geoff-anderson-products/
https://iwto.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/IWTO_Wool-Sleep.pdf
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1. Making the product is the easy part
I might be biased on this part, because I come from a fashion and textile background. But still, developing and producing a product is easier than I thought it would be. My last job, before I started Waxwing Labs, was to source fabric for a national women’s apparel company. We had a few brands, and each had it’s own design/merchant/sourcing team. But not just one team for each brand – there was a team for each product category within the brand. Woven tops had its own designer/merchant/sourcing manager; dresses had its own, jackets had its own, and so on. Sometimes a category had multiple designers or merchants.
The last place I worked had all these people to produce product, and I’m going to start my own company and do it all myself? That sounds a bit scary, and it was. But then you realize – in some ways, it’s easier at a smaller scale. There are fewer products to juggle, fewer opinions, and no red tape. In comparison to managing and developing 300 fabrics a season for as many products, producing the first product for Waxwing Labs was easy.
2. Selling it is the hard part
I might also be biased on this part too, because I have absolutely no experience in marketing and hate trying to sell anything. I’ve always thought that a great product should sell on its own and need no explanation. People would just “get it” instantly and if they wanted it, they’d buy it – but I’m certainly not going to talk them into it.
That’s definitely not how it works, at all. When you know a product inside and out, you forget that others don’t know what you do. For example, I know the fashion industry, I know what to look for when I shop, and I know the industry jargon, but I take all this knowledge for granted. I do not, however, know computers – I don’t know what to look for, I don’t know what all those specs mean, I don’t even know what I need or don’t need. For computers, I need a company to walk me through all this in a way that makes sense to me; I don’t just “get it” when I see it. Apparel is the same way.
3. Social media matters
I have never been big on social media. I have it, but rarely post anything other than major life events or occasional cute pet pictures. It’s probably because I don’t like to self-promote.
For business, though, social media is critical. It’s how customers find you, and how you build a relationship with your customers. It’s how you explain to customers what your product is, and how they can benefit from it. But social media is more than that, too – it’s about building a community, a lifestyle, and shared experiences. And end the end, that’s what life is about – not another pair of pants.
4. All those little steps in between product and selling are not so little
There’s a lot of things that happen after the product development stage but before the product reaches the consumer – things I didn’t see even while working in a major apparel brand. There’s packaging, apparel tags, photoshoots, logistics, marketing campaigns, social media campaigns, finance, and even international import duties. I was aware of all these things, but in the way you might be aware that there are trees on your street – you know there are trees, but you don’t know anything about what kind of tree it is or how it got there, and you kinda forget the tree even exists; it’s in the background.
When you start your own company, you suddenly see everything. You gain a great appreciation of all those “little steps,” because they are crucial to the success of the company.
5. Asking for help outside your area of expertise is not “taking the easy way out”
I learned this after too many weeks of trying to pattern the Willow pant. Sometimes, if there’s somebody that can do something better than you, and quicker, just let them do it. It’s not that you can’t do it, or that with time you couldn’t be as quick and good. There’s a saying that goes along the lines of “saying yes to one thing means saying no to another.” In other words, my time and skills would be better used to writing blog posts on making the Willow pant, for example. I can’t do everything, but I should do the things that only I can do, and delegate the rest where needed.
]]>When we last left off, I had finally settled on recycled kraft paper mailers for my packaging. But that’s just half the story – deciding is one thing; executing is another.
I specifically wanted 100% recycled material (that being the most sustainable), and I wanted the mailers to be custom printed (so you know what the package is as soon as you see it). If you try to google “custom recycled kraft paper mailers,” however, you get a lot of search results that aren’t actually “custom recycled kraft paper mailers,” or even “kraft paper mailers at all”. For example:
Perhaps I should have launched a “custom recycled kraft paper mailer” company instead of an apparel brand...
I did find one company that had exactly what I needed, and their minimum order quantities were reasonable, too. They even had the option to print in black algae ink, which is super interesting and more sustainable than traditional printing options. I reached out to them, worked with their designer on the logo, got a quote, and was ready to go until then – silence. I was ready to order but for a full week, nobody would respond to my (multiple) emails or phone call. With a lead-time already long at 6-7 weeks, I quite literally didn’t have the time to wait an additional week just to place an order. Furthermore, as a start-up company, I am looking for suppliers that I can partner and grow with – and this was not a good start to a new relationship.
With regret, I continued my search for a packaging supplier. By now I was forced to think outside the box. Maybe my problem was trying finding one supplier that could do everything (package and custom print). Maybe instead, I could find a packaging supplier, and then have the mailers printed separately with a third party? Maybe I could print them myself? Can you even print a mailer bag with a desktop home printer?? And then I had it – stamps! I would hand stamp the packaging.
I researched this possibility and discovered that not only was hand-stamping a possibility, it was perfect – there was a custom stamp provider literally two hours away from me; it was cheaper both in the short and long term than custom printing; and it was more sustainable.
Stamps are one of the oldest and simplest forms of printing. You just need some kind of carved block, ink, and an inkpad. This is in contrast to the printers of today – even the simplest home printers have hundreds of little parts that take significantly more resources to make than a stamp. And, printers use a considerable amount electricity to run and maintain, while a stamp... well, just runs on you. As for ink, both stamps and industrial printers have a range of sustainable to harmful options – our ink is water-based, oil-free, and poses no health hazards (here’s the link to the ink Safety Data Sheet).
Once I figured out how to print (stamp) the mailers, it became easier to find plain recycled kraft mailers. Salazar packaging had exactly what I needed – a 12.5” x 20” x 4” 100% post consumer waste recycled gusseted mailer bag. The gusset would allow the mailer to expand in size, which meant I could use one bag to hold up to two pairs of pants if needed. The 100% post consumer waste material was a bonus - this meant that the bags were made of paper products that people had recycled, actively diverting material from landfills (in contrast to recycled industrial waste, which is also good but happens earlier in the supply chain). Furthermore, Salazar is a family owned retailer in the US, who sources products from American manufacturers (like Wisconsin Converting, Inc.).
It took seconds to order my packaging online with Salazar. With that done, I ordered my custom stamp and ink from PromoteSource, another American company. Finally, finally, my packaging adventures were over.
Until, a few days later I got a lovely email from Salazar explaining that their supply chain had been disrupted by COVID-19 and my packages would be delayed until mid-November, though they did have other options ready to ship that day. This was excellent customer service, but now I was in a sticky situation. My product would arrive the first week of November, just barely in time for the holiday season. If I delayed launch to wait for the packaging, I would be sitting on thousands of dollars worth of product and missing the height of the retail season. As a startup company, I couldn’t take a financial hit like that. I had to go with the backup packaging – a fiberglass reinforced kraft mailer bag.
Though this bag is not made of recycled materials, and cannot be recycled due to the fiberglass, it is made of sustainably sourced and renewable materials, offers better product protection in the mail, and still offers the sustainability benefits of being lightweight to ship. Furthermore, the fiberglass reinforcement means that you can reuse this bag several more times than traditional kraft paper mailers.
At last, my packaging was settled. But there is one more thing I would like to point out with our packaging. When you receive your purchase, inside the mailer bag there will be another plastic bag enclosing your product. I know – after all this research, we’re still using a plastic bag? The reason for the plastic bag is for protection, both at the factory and in the mail. Once a product is cut and sewn, it needs to be stored somehow while the rest of the order is completed. Plastic bags keep the product clean of debris while it waits (there’s a lot of fibers and threads floating around on a factory floor). When the order is completed, the factory ships the product to our distribution center in cardboard boxes, and here again the plastic bags offer more protection (from rain, dirt, spills, etc.) while the product is in transit. For this same reason, we keep the product in its original plastic bag when we ship to you. At the end of its life, the plastic bag can be recycled along with your grocery bags.
We are always improving and searching for new, sustainable materials in both our products and our packaging. This is just our starting point. We have our eye on some interesting things – materials made of shellfish, seaweed, limestone quarry waste, pineapples, mushrooms, and more. Some innovations have not yet hit the market, and for some, Waxwing Labs needs to first scale in size. Until then, we do our best to reduce and reuse where we can. For starters, we’re fans of these DIY paper bag planters :)
]]>So now that you’re thinking about it, which would you rather receive in the mail? A fancy package with a bold design that gets you excited to open it as soon as you see it? With packaging that good, you can’t wait to see what’s inside. Or a plain grey bag, which could be either those batteries you ordered on Amazon or your new pair of pants? You open it (eventually), and ohhh yeah, it is those pants after all.
I’d rather have the fancy packaging, so that’s what I did for Waxwing Labs. And it turns out that there’s as much work that goes into packaging as there is for the product.
First of all, I wanted my packaging to be as sustainable as possible – I enjoy hiking and nature and the last thing I ever want to see is my packaging floating down a stream or worse, tangled up with a sea turtle. But, being sustainable is complicated. At first I thought I wanted a custom branded, tab-locking corrugated cardboard box, which would open up like a pizza box for a sophisticated reveal. A cardboard box is sustainable, right? Maybe.
Me being me, I go down the rabbit hole of what is truly “sustainable packaging”. Sometimes cardboard is sustainable – if the paper is sourced from trees that are sustainably harvested (products certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative are a good start). Even better if the cardboard is made of recycled paper. But then I started looking at shipping those boxes – from the packaging company, to me, and then to my customers. Cardboard boxes take up more space and are heavier than mailer bags, so they use up more resources to transport, like gasoline, which means they emit more greenhouse gases during transportation. Think of it this way – if you filled up one truck with only flat, empty plastic mailer bags, it would take at least two trucks of the same size to carry the equivalent number of flat, empty, cardboard boxes.
So, I eliminated boxes from my packaging options. I couldn’t justify using packaging that would needlessly take up more room and resources to transport, just for a fancy box. Mailer bags it was, then.
Mailer bags might be even more complicated than boxes, as far as figuring out their sustainability. There’s plastic mailer bags, which are the lightest and smallest to transport, and surprisingly don’t use too many resources to produce (once petroleum has been extracted, at least). If customers reused and recycled the plastic bags after receiving their product, that might not be a bad option. But, recycling plastic bags takes effort – you have to take the extra trip to a plastic bag recycling receptacle, usually at a grocery store. Which means you also have to remember to take your plastic bags with you to the grocery store. Which means, if you’re like me, you forget all the time, end up with a hoard of plastic bags, and then have to face the shame of shoving all those bags into the bin in front of the grocery store... That might not be a good option after all.
With a little more research, I found that there are plastic bags that are biodegradable – intriguing. These bags are usually made of cornstarch, which sounds on the surface to be completely eco-friendly. Ah, but there’s always a catch – is it ethical to use corn in packaging, instead of feeding the hungry? Maybe it’s made with corn that would never make it into the food industry, but then the question is, shouldn’t we focus our farming resources to be more efficient to feed the world, instead of perpetuating a throw-away culture? On top of this ethical dilemma, many biodegradable plastic bags still use petroleum, so they’re still really not that “green”. To make matters worse, biodegradable plastic bags absolutely cannot be recycled, and if they accidentally were to be recycled, they would mess up and contaminate the recycling stream.
Ok, deeper I go. I find a start-up packaging company in Australia that offers biodegradable bags made of limestone quarry waste – no ethical food dilemma, no petroleum. Perfect. I even ordered a sample, and on top of being durable and sustainable, they had a neat texture that almost felt like rubber. It was different from the texture of plastic bags, in a good way. I liked the idea that my packaging could be a tactile experience in addition to a visual one. But there’s that catch again – their branding minimum order was out of reach for me, which meant I would have to use their standard bags, which were covered in their company’s own branding. I’m not opposed to this for personal use, but when you’re a new company just starting out, you don’t want to serve as a billboard for a different company, even if you do admire what they’re doing. It’s confusing for the customer – they thought they ordered from Waxwing Labs, so why would they get their pants in a package from “Other Company XYZ”?
Well, how about kraft paper mailer bags? They have all the benefits of the recycled cardboard boxes, but are lighter and thinner, which means that they would use less in transportation resources. Kraft mailers are still not as light and thin as plastic mailers, but they are easier to recycle and will eventually biodegrade. There’s still a caveat to this, though – if packaging is going to make its way into a landfill, it’s actually better for it to be as small as possible and to not biodegrade, because this process releases methane, a greenhouse gas. If you look at it this way, plastic mailer bags are looking better again.
Now I’m left with pretty much one option – reusable mailer bags. This is an interesting concept: a third party packaging company supplies heavy-duty plastic bags (made of a material similar to a plastic tarp) to a retailer. The retailer ships their product in the bags to the customer, and then the customer can bring the bag to a drop-off location. The bag is sent back to the third party packaging company, and is then redistributed to the retailers again. It’s a circular system, but it only works if the customer returns the bag. If not, these bags are the worst option as they use the most resources to produce than any other type of bag, and are the bulkiest to transport.
By now it’s clear that there is no easy answer to what packaging is the most sustainable. They all have their pros and cons, and what may work for some companies and customers does not necessarily work for all. After weighing the options, I eventually landed on using the kraft paper mailers – they don’t use transportation resources in excess like boxes; they’re easy for customers to recycle, reuse, or compost at home; they use sustainable raw materials (if SFI certified or recycled); and if improperly disposed of, won’t cause too much harm to the environment other than a bit of methane in landfills (that’s better than tangling up sea turtles, right? Maybe??).
All in all, if I learned one thing through this process, it’s that the more times you can use an item, the less its environmental impact – and when an item has reached the end of it’s life, dispose of it properly!
Now, choosing the packaging material is finally done, but that was just Step 1 - there’s still the branding to do and supplier to find! While you’re eagerly awaiting Part 2 of the packaging saga, enjoy the below resources that I used to learn more about sustainable packaging:
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Once the silhouette was decided, next came the details. I wanted easy, pull-on pants, which meant the waistband should be elastic. I hate elastics that fold down and buckle with wear, so I found a heavy duty elastic from a supplier I had previously worked with, P.I. Trimmings – an elastic 4 inches wide and woven for structure (most elastics are knitted or braided, and are subject to rolling).
To prevent those unattractive gathers that can happen with some elastic bottoms, I kept the length of the elastic the same as the waist circumference. This means the pant will stretch enough to pull over your hips, but will still have a smooth waistband.
Pockets, of course, were a must. To keep the clean look of the pant, I choose discreet side seam pockets. As for the rest of the pant leg, I opted to keep it slim through the hip with a moderately wide leg opening – not so wide to be swimmingly big, but just enough to balance out the width of the hips for a sleek look. Wide legs and cropped lengths go hand-in-hand, but I went with a length just above the ankle mostly for a specific, practical reason – I despise walking the dog on rainy nights and getting the hem of my pajamas wet.
With the details settled, I pulled out my old patternmaking bible from school – Armstrong’s Pattern Making for Fashion Design. Unfortunately, patternmaking is not my strong suit. It took me the better part of the day to make the pant sloper, and then another day to shape the sloper into the high waisted wide leg crop, and then a third day to finally cut and sew the first sample. The results were beyond terrible; something went completely and utterly wrong in the pattern. I started over, and a few days later I had a second sample. Better, but still not remotely good. I lacked experience in technical fittings, and spent countless hours googling pant fitting and troubleshooting videos.
Finally, about two months since the first sample, I had a fit sample that I was mostly happy with. All along the plan had been that I would sew the production garments, but even though I was able to achieve a decent fit, my technical sewing skills were not professional, to say the least. (Note, I made my first samples in scrap interlock fabric that I had on hand, so as to not waste the actual fabric).
Yeah, my sewing is bad. I had to face it, I needed help and I needed a production factory – my specialty is in fabric, not the garment. After more hours of googling and searching Maker’s Row, I had a short list of factories to contact. My requirements were simple: I wanted factory based in the U.S. for both ease of working and ethical worker conditions; a factory that could manage small orders of 100 units or less; one that wouldn’t upcharge me for things I could do myself (like fabric sourcing or tech pack creation); and one that produced a high quality product. As with the fabric, price was not a limiting factor in selecting the factory – the important thing was to find a partner I could grow with, who was able to produce beautiful, quality garments without shortcuts.
Of the nine mills I contacted, two responded and met my requirements. I decided to make a sample garment with both of them for a few reasons – mainly, to see who produced a better quality garment and was easiest to work with, but also to have a backup option. While oversampling is unsustainable and a waste of both the factory’s and my own resources, I have learned from working in the industry to never put all your eggs in one basket. A factory could suddenly go out of business; tariffs could quadruple; Covid-19 can shut down a country – so in my mind, it’s a requirement to always have a plan B for critical business practices.
While the quality from both garment factories was beautiful, I ultimately chose Gil Sewing Corp in Chicago, IL as my production partner. They were able to work with the sample I had made, offer suggestions on how to improve the fit, and were prompt and helpful in their communications. They provided exactly what I needed – pattern making and digitizing, sample making, size grading, markers, production, and 100% quality assurance (every single garment is checked before sending out; some factories only check a certain percentage).
The first sample from Gil sewing was a million times better than what I could have ever made myself. The pockets turned out deeper than I had designed, but I actually loved how much extra stuff they could fit, so I kept them at their 9"depth. Otherwise, the sample just needed a few minor adjustments in the pockets and crotch area. To fix the pocket from flaring open, we changed the construction from side seam pockets to pockets that slanted in towards the waist; added a little more width in the hip to prevent pulling; stitched down the pocket bag to the body fabric around the pocket opening; and changed the pocket bag fabric to a lighter, more discreet merino jersey (we had been using the same fabric as the body and you could see the outline of the pocket bag). For the crotch, we added more width in the waist, dropped the crotch length, and scooped out more of the crotch curve.
By the time my second sample from Gil sewing arrived, I had successfully completed the wear trial and was pleased with the results (once the wash care was modified). And after months of struggling to achieve the perfect pant in the perfect fabric with the perfect fit, the second Gil sample finally made the cut (I know, I'm a perfectionist...). At last, I was ready to go into production.
Though the Willow’s story was now done, there was still much to do. Look out for the next step in launching Waxwing Labs - labeling and packaging!
]]>The Willow began at a New York City trade show in January 2020 (more about fabric trade shows coming soon). I was there for my job at the time and was visiting the usual venues – Premiere Vision and Texworld. These are huge trade shows with hundreds of vendors showcasing nearly everything you could imagine - and while there you walk literally miles of booths filled with buttons, zippers, fabric swatches, and more. Once I finished my work, I had a couple hours left before dinner, so out of curiosity I googled other fabric trade shows that might be going on to make the most of my time in the city. Up came the Japan Textile Salon. It only had 16 vendors, a tiny amount compared to the hundreds at PV and Texworld, but Japan has a reputation for quality fabrics so I figured, why not take a look?
The Japan Textile Salon turned out to be worth the time and more. Situated in the back left against the wall was Fujisaki Textiles with their US agent, New Power Generation Co. Their booth wasn’t eye catching from afar, but once I felt their fabrics – that was something different. There I found a Merino French terry – the only one I’d seen in my entire trip.
Merino wool is a fiber famous for being extremely soft, breathable, anti-odor, anti-bacterial, and temperature regulating (keep an eye out for a blog post in the future on some of the benefits of Merino). As if all that wasn’t magical enough, Merino is also completely sustainable and environmentally friendly. But, the old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ is true. Merino is expensive, so it usually appears in simpler fabric structures that are more economical to produce, like jerseys or plainweaves.
Now, I’ve seen plenty of wonderful Merino jerseys and plainweaves. I have never seen a 100% Merino used in a French terry fabric construction. A little about French terrys, a favorite for sweats and loungewear: they have a slight amount of stretch due to their knit structure, a smooth face on the outside, thousands of tiny little loops on the inside that trap air to regulate temperature, and they are surprisingly light given their thickness. A French terry, no matter the fiber used, is a cushy, plush fabric and a delight in it’s own right. But, like Merino fibers, French terry fabrics are not the most economical to produce – those cute mini loops take a bit longer to make, and slow down the knitting process. In many cases the increased fabric production cost is often balanced out with the use of less expensive fibers – blends, poly, etc.
Somewhere, though, some daring person in Japan disregarded the cost of Merino, ignored the price to manufacture French terrys, and joined the two together. The result is amazing – cozy wonder fiber Merino + cozy French terry = exponential coziness.
After I my last day at my old job (another story for another time), the first thing I did was reach out to New Power Generation Co regarding their Merino French terry. (As a side note, many overseas mills are represented in the U.S. by third parties, which help connect the mill with potential customers. Such is the relationship between Fujisaki Textiles (the mill in Japan), and their agent, New Power Generation Co.) I didn’t know if they’d remember me, or if they’d even respond to an individual (versus corporate) request. Anyway, I couldn’t get the fabric out of my mind, so I sent a standard email inquiry along the lines of:
To my surprise, I heard back an enthusiastic response on the same day. The price was high - $43.68/yd not including shipping (nearly 10x more expensive than the fabrics I was sourcing at my old job), but then again, this was a fabric I’d never seen before. In my opinion, this was a fabric that needed to be shared with the world.
There were some other benefits with this fabric too – it was made of non-mulesed Merino wool from New Zealand, machine washable, sample yardage was available in a variety of colors, and Fujisaki could work with my extremely small order quantity of a few hundred yards. I was sold.
I ordered 9 yards to start with, enough to make a few garment samples (as to what that sample would be, I was still working on that part). Having a bit of a background in quality assurance though, I was still wary – the fabric looked and felt spectacular, but would it hold up to the wear and tear of life?
My package arrived from Japan and I immediately ran the first test, shrinkage. It’s one of the most important thresholds to pass – nobody wants a garment that becomes 3 sizes too small in the wash – and an easy one to do at home. Draw two squares of equal size on the fabric, cut one out, wash it, and compare to the unwashed square. Find the difference in the length of the washed square compared to the unwashed, then divide that by the unwashed length and you get your percent shrinkage in length. Do the same with the width, and there’s your percent shrinkage widthwise. (This is the quick and easy ‘at home’ shrinkage test; there are professional third parties that follow strict testing guidelines that will provide more accurate results).
I machine washed a small fabric swatch with my usual laundry, on the regular cycle with cold water. So far so good, my swatch didn’t turn into felt in the washer. I kept on with my laundry, and dried the swatch on regular heat. Still unfelted, I compared my washed and dried swatch to the original – with relief, it was still nearly the same size with only a minor increase in fuzziness (which suggests this fabric could possibly take machine drying, but more on that later). This incredible Merino French terry passed its first test. There were many more tests to do, but those would be done in garment form.
Next week, I’ll explain the next stage of making the Willow – the garment itself.
]]>Or in my case, an example of my brain going down the internet rabbit hole.
When I was creating the website for Waxwing Labs, I knew I wanted it to include a blog. But, just like everybody says their fabrics are the best, everybody calls their blog ... well, a blog. Or at best, “stories,” or “journal,” both of which are a bit cliché and boring. So I went to thesaurus.com in search of synonyms (my favorite procrastination writing tool), and went down the rabbit hole until I discovered a new word, “marginalia.”
First of all, I like learning new words, and it sounds kinda fancy. But most importantly, it describes perfectly what this blog will be – my notes, commentary, and insights on Waxwing Labs behind-the-scenes. If Waxwing Labs were a book, then this blog is its marginalia.
It's really how I approach Waxwing Labs. I love learning everything I can about a new subject and getting into the nitty-gritty and technical. I expect more than just the status quo, and if I go down a million rabbit holes to get there, it’s not in vain – those tidbits are stored away to spark a new idea down the road (...or plenty of blog posts).
We started this company to have an exceptionally high quality - from the fabrics to the products and everything in between, and we’ve obsessively researched every aspect to make it so. Over time I hope readers come to understand that isn't just another generic marketing claim. We will tell the story of exactly how every product, decision, and process is made, so you can learn for yourself. We offer swatches of the fabric, so you can feel and see for yourself. And should we fall short of your expectations, we would love to hear it, so that we may learn from you as well.
And so, welcome to the Marginalia of Waxwing Labs.
P.S. for further marginalia reading, the New Yorker’s Marginal Obsession with Marginalia is spellbinding (yeah, I thesaurus-ed that :) ).
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